The Fatah-Hamas Reconciliation: Threatening Peace Prospects
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The Fatah-Hamas Reconciliation: Threatening Peace Prospects Testimony by Dr. Matthew Levitt Director, Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence The Washington Institute for Near East Policy February 5, 2013 Hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Deutch, distinguished members of the committee, it is an honor to appear before you this morning to discuss the potential impact of a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation on prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In the eyes of many, reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas is a prerequisite for advancing peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The idea is that Palestinians cannot negotiate with Israel in any serious way when divided between the West Bank under the rule of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Gaza Strip under the rule of Hamas. To be sure, PA officials in the West Bank can make neither demands nor concessions when it comes to the Gaza Strip, which they do not control. But the same cannot be said for the West Bank, where the PA is firmly in control. There, in the West Bank, there is much that could be done that would improve the daily lives of Palestinians and Israelis both. But I will leave that line of reasoning to my colleague David Makovsky, with whom I am honored to appear before you today. The other flaw behind the reasoning that sees Fatah-Hamas reconciliation as some kind of panacea is that Hamas has not changed. It remains committed to violence aimed at destroying Israel; refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist; and rejects the idea of a two-state solution. Indeed, Hamas's terms for reconciliation include a cessation of PA security cooperation with Israel, as well as demands that Hamas get control of key ministries like the Ministry of Interior (which oversees security services) and that no changes are made to Hamas's security services in the Gaza Strip.1 This, of course, would be the equivalent of inviting the fox into the henhouse. Absent reform and concessions on the part of Hamas, reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas would be the death knell of the peace process. More recently, Hamas revived talk about the possibility it might seek to join the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and assume a leadership position in the organization alongside Fatah. In Hamas's eyes, this would enable the group to follow in the footsteps of fellow Muslim Brotherhood Islamist parties that have come to power over the course of the Arab Awakening. But even here, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal made clear that joining the PLO would not mark a shift in Hamas's ideological or 1 "Hamas Sets New Terms for Reconciliation with Fatah," Reuters, February 23, 2012, www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/23/us-palestinians-unity-idUSTRE81M0TR20120223. 1 political positions. Hamas insisted on "liberation first, then a state," Mashal explained, because a state based on "compromise or settlement is not a real state." If that were not clear enough, he added that “Hamas will always be with the resistance. Resistance is not a hotel that we can check into and out of.” Indeed, it is at the core of Hamas's identity as a militant Islamist group committed to jihad. Responding to critics of Hamas's decision to agree to a ceasefire with Israel after the November 2012 conflict, Mashal was equally blunt: “To those who view the cease-fire with suspicion, we will be committed to the path of resistance until we liberate Palestine. But escalation and calm, this is a management decision.”2 In other words, nobody should mistake Hamas's tactical flexibility for strategic change. To be sure, on the other side of the Fatah-Hamas divide, Fatah remains notoriously corrupt, continues to tolerate and engage in anti-Israel incitement and propaganda, and appears more interested in pursuing international recognition through acts of unilateralism than in pursuing substantive talks with Israel. And yet, continued funding for the PA remains smart policy in the best interests of U.S foreign policy objectives, not to mention Palestinian and Israeli interests. Hamas Is the Problem Hamas's continued terrorist activity targeting Israel from the Gaza Strip was underscored most recently by the November 2012 conflict, which was initiated by Hamas provocations such as firing an antitank missile at an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) jeep on the Israeli side of the border; filling a border tunnel with explosives to capture an Israeli soldier; and placing an explosive at the border fence. For its part, Israel responded as severely as it did to these Hamas provocations because it could not tolerate a situation in which Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza continued to stockpile long- range rockets -- including Iranian- and Chinese-made Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 missiles -- and other strategic weapons that could threaten large swaths of the Israeli population at once. These weapons are smuggled into Gaza via ratlines that run the length of Egypt, north to south and east to west. Iran ships weapons to Sudan and, as the recent Israeli attack on a weapons factory in Khartoum revealed, manufactures weapons there as well. These are then trucked north through Egypt, across the Sinai, and into Gaza -- a distance of over 1,500 kilometers. Other weapons, including small arms and man- portable air-defense systems (MANPADs, or shoulder-fired missiles), have been flowing east out of Libya, across northern Egypt, and into Gaza. Not only had Hamas and other groups amassed arsenals of some 10,000 rockets, Hamas also built weapons labs where it was producing its own long-range rockets (albeit with much smaller payloads) and developing a domestic capability to produce unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Recently, Hamas made significant improvements that increased the range, accuracy, and payloads of its domestically manufactured rockets. Over the course of the November 2012 conflict, Israel destroyed many of these weapons systems, as well as launchpads, production labs, and command-and-control facilities. And Hamas fired off around a thousand of its rockets, further depleting its arsenal. Today, Hamas is working overtime to try to replace these weapons. 2 Anne Barnard, "Hamas Chief Revives Talk of Reuniting with PLO," New York Times, November 28, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/world/middleeast/leader-of-hamas-calls-for-palestinian-unity.html?_r=0. 2 Meanwhile, even as it pressed ahead with plans to accumulate as many rockets and other weapons as possible in the Gaza Strip, Hamas has worked hard over the past couple of years to rebuild its West Bank networks. In 2011, Israeli security forces arrested dozens of Hamas operatives spread throughout a network of some thirteen militant cells located in the southern West Bank and the Jerusalem area.3 The network carried out one attack, setting off a small improvised explosive device near the International Convention Center in downtown Jerusalem on March 23, killing a British citizen and wounding forty- seven Israelis.4 In another case, the network successfully infiltrated an intended suicide bomber into Jerusalem from Hebron, but authorities thwarted the plot and arrested the would-be bomber on August 22. Members of the network included more than twenty criminals recruited by jailed Hamas operatives in Israel's Ketziot Prison. Most of them were near the end of their terms at the time of recruitment and were soon released, whereupon they focused their efforts on recruiting more members and plotting kidnapping operations aimed at securing the release of Hamas leaders in Israeli prisons.5 Hamas leaders from Gaza helped direct the operations of these new West Bank cells and sought to provide weapons by smuggling them through Sinai and the Negev desert into the southern West Bank. Among the plots foiled by the Israeli arrests were shootings, kidnappings targeting Israelis near Hebron or the Gush Etzion bloc in the West Bank, and a Jerusalem suicide bombing planned for August 21.6 News of the arrests came as a surprise to many given the relative quiet the West Bank has enjoyed recently, which is largely a result of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation targeting Hamas activities there. Yet over the past six months, Israeli security officials have recorded a 25 percent increase in the number of threat warnings regarding potential Hamas attacks in the West Bank, especially in the Hebron, Nablus, and Ramallah areas. Hamas activity in the West Bank continues. At the end of January, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet) arrested twenty known Hamas members in Hebron (West Bank). They are known as Hamas members because they had served prison sentences in Israel previously for terrorist activity. They were planning on carrying out kidnapping plots and had more than ten guns of various types. The investigation revealed that the terror cell maintained contact with high-ranking Hamas officials to receive assistance, directions, and funding. The cell's primary contact was Husam Badran, a former prisoner who was part of the exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Badran was released from prison in October 2011 and exiled to Qatar. The terrorist cell has been indicted on charges of weapons possession, contacting a hostile organization, and conspiracy to kidnap an IDF soldier.7 The IDF also noted that the “terrorists' primary goal was to execute a kidnapping attack in order to bargain for the release of prisoners.”8 3 Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, September 12, 2011, http://www.terrorism- info.org.il/data/pdf/PDF_11_199_2.pdf, 2. 4 Ibid., 4. 5 Ibid., 2-5. 6 Ibid., 4. 7 "Hamas Terror Infrastructure Uncovered," Israel Defense Forces, January 31, 2013, http://www.idf.il/1283- 18192-en/Dover.aspx.